BerthaBlog

Rather than doing anything remotely constructive with my Saturday afternoon, like going outside and watching the snow melt, I spent it reading about retail hell. Been there, done that, sold the t-shirt.

Later that evening I went to watch Belly Revelations, as my friend Romilly was performing with the local troupe. They were great, and unveiled their new eye-catching tiger-stripe troupe costumes. I want to make one and just wear it around the house. Wouldn’t the UPS guy be surprised when I came to the door?

The featured performer was a lady named Dalia Carella. Now, don’t mistake me, I thought all the performers were great. But there’s definitely a reason she gets top billing—she makes most other dancers look like, well, me. She went flowing across the stage like a river set to music, and if some of us forgot to applaud when she was done
it was only because our hands were busy collecting our jaw from the floor.

I sure hope someone got pictures.

In every relationship, no matter how harmonious, there is an element of discord.

One of ours is the phone. My mate and I have differing approaches to a ringing telephone. Namely, that he feels it should be answered, and I don’t. Needless to say these approaches are incompatible.

I just don’t like to talk on the phone. If I’m calling someone I’d generally prefer to get their answering machine; it means I get to skip all the fumbling social niceties and just get to the damn point. This is the situation, this is what I want from you, this is how you can reach me with your answer. Bam! —done in thirty seconds.

And when my phone rings, I don’t feel any particular obligation to answer it. If I’m within easy reach of the caller ID I’ll look and see who it is; most of the time it’s “Out of Area” (translation: telemarketer) and I let it ring. This aggravates my mate, who seems to feel that you’re supposed to answer the phone.

“Sometimes we do get real calls that are Out of Area.”

“That’s what the answering machine is for.”

My attitude in general is that technology exists to serve me. My television records the programs I want to watch, and I’ll get around to actually viewing them whenever it suits me. (I love Tivo.) One of my favorite things about computers is that if I wander off and get
involved with something else, it will sit right there waiting for me to come back. Even my van turns on its own headlights when I drive it at night. If the technology requires more from me than the most basic of occasional maintenance, it can go live elsewhere.

So when my phone demands attention, I don’t feel any urge to respond. Chances are I’m doing something at that particular moment, and just because someone else is free to talk to me now doesn’t mean the reverse is true. Anyone who has any business calling me about their emergency has my cell phone number; anyone else can take advantage of the wonderful recording technology afforded by my answering machine.

Which probably won’t stop my mate from giving me dark looks as he stalks in from the other end of the house to answer the phone.

I thought we were done with the snow and ice. Seriously, here in central NC we get maybe one big snow/ice storm in January and that’s it. Maybe.

And here I sit, looking out at all this white shit that got dumped on the ground last night. It started off with sleet last night, and seems to have been topped off with a fluffy snow icing this morning.

Schools are on a two hour delay. Thank goodness they didn’t actually get closed. The kids have already had so many snow days, if they miss many more they’ll be making them up in June.

Grandma went home from the hospital yesterday, and was very glad to get back to her own little place.

We’ve been concerned that she’ll have trouble fixing food for herself, since now she needs a walker to stand up, so my parents arranged to have Meals on Wheels come by and bring her lunch. Grandma tends to be leery of opening the door to people she doesn’t know, so I went over there today so she’d have some family there the first time they came over.

She’s feeling much better. She chattered the whole time I was there, except when actually eating her lunch, mostly alternating between remarks about the difficulties now imposed on her by her injury and various resulting conditions, and how glad she was that it hadn’t been worse. She’s said several times that she’s relieved she didn’t break a bone when she fell. She complained a bit, but not as much as usual; I think she’s compared her lot to that of some of the other residents of the rehab center, and feels she’s got it pretty good (all things considered).

I took over my little project bag and just worked on the stumpwork hedgehog Romilly taught a class in while I listened. Grandma likes that I do stuff like that, and has said one of these days she’ll teach me to quilt. One of these days I’m going to show up at her door with a box of scraps and really surprise her. For me, doing these stitching-type things is almost like a kind of meditation, so I found my mind contemplating all manner of things as I listened. What we would have done if she had broken a bone—she wouldn’t have been able to live alone any more, in all likelihood. The way people filter their experiences through a lens of their own preconceptions—her account of what happened in the hospital, as well as past family interactions, is markedly different from how those around her remember it. What it will be like for me when I’m old and feeble and probably senile (will anyone be able to tell the difference?).

On another note, my mate has returned from Massachusetts, so all is right with the world again.

I sometimes wonder how I get on some of these mailing lists. Today I got a plea for money from the Alliance for Retired Americans, who seem to think I’m a member. Unless they’ve moved the retirement age down a lot recently and I didn’t hear, I’ve got another thirty or forty years to go before I’m a retired American.

But they did send me some free address stickers, which I can use when I pay the bills.